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  • Hey all, just changed over the backend after 15 years I figured time to give it a bit of an update, its probably gonna be a bit weird for most of you and i am sure there is a few bugs to work out but it should kinda work the same as before... hopefully :)

Shooting 16:9 or native 2:1 for 1:1.85 aspect

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Markus Rave

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I will be shooting a feature summer this year for theatrical release in 1:1.85 aspect. The first workflow has to go through FCP Studio to be able to edit and basically grade the material for financing the final product which will be printed to 35mm and of course graded in a postpro facility that is knowledgable about the workflow.
To provide the best possible resolution I thought about two ways to go. First would be shooting native 2:1 and cropping the edges and second would be shooting 16:9 and cropping top and bottom to receive the desired 1:1.85 aspect. I do not know what will give the better result and can be embedded with more ease into the FCP workflow.

Has anybody had the same question and tried out what will be the best way to go?

Any help appreciated.

Markus
 
For 1.85:1 you're far better off shooting 16:9 - it's a smaller crop than taking the sides down from 2:1, preserving as much resolution as possible. (16:9 is 1.78:1, so very close to 1.85:1). It also means, should you ever want (or be able to afford to) you can release a 4K version as you are preserving the full 4K width of the frame.

Another advantage is that you can provide a full-frame HD 16:9 master for bluray/broadcast/etc in the future without having to crop at all.

No real difference as far as FCP workflow goes, so that doesn't really figure into the equation...

Cheers,
Dom.
 
Until today I always shoot 2:1 releasing the print with small black strips top and bottom wich was minime depending on the projector window. I had some projectionnist who where suprised not to see the normal 1:85 framing. The 2:1 aspect was also motivated by the script.

On some other project, the choice was also based on post-production needs wich was problematic with 4k 16:9 media at that time.

Now as I think that 16:9 doen't make trouble in post (FCP, to verify) I would go for the full sensor 16:9 with 1:85 guide and then corp the additionnal picture in post.

This does increase data flow by only a tiny amount.

Have a nice shooting.

Patrick
 
16:9 is the better format choice for this application. You would be able to still keep the full horizontal width of the frame, whereas shooting 2:1, you would be cropping the sides to make your 1.85:1 aspect.

FCP accepts 4K 16:9 just fine. It just loads it in converted to 2K, but same with 4K 2:1 - FCP only uses the R3D files as 2K.
 
I thank you all very much and yesterday did some math about the issue. I was not sure if 16:9 would give you more vertical resolution and just crop the sides but listening to your advice makes me think it does leave 4096px horizontal. In this case I will have 14.5% more pixels in use and of course this is the better choice.

When I check my pcam I notice that the horizontal angle gets larger with full 16:9 compared with native 2:1. This tells me that the width of resolution must get wider than 4096 pixels and so height will increase, too. Am I right or am I missing something?
 
When you shoot 4K on the RED it's 4096 pixels wide, with the exception of 4KHD, which is 3840 pixels wide.

4K 16:9 is 4096 x 2304 | Cropped to 1.85:1 it would be 4096 x 2214

4K 2:1 is 4096 x 2048 | Cropped to 1.85:1 it would be 3788 x 2048


So yes, 16:9 is the best for cropping to 1.85:1 if you want to maximize your resolution.
 
Horizontal angle does not enlarge between 16:9 and 2:1, unless you're cropping. Is your pcam taking into account the crop to 1.85:1? That would make sense, otherwise it's wrong. Both 16:9 and 2:1 are 4096 pixels wide.

Another possibility is that you're confusing diagonal angle of view with horizontal? That also changes, due to the aspect change.

There is - currently - no mode wider than 4096 available. Apparently a full sensor width (4520 pixels) 2.40:1 mode may become available at some point, but not yet.... That wouldn't help you if you're shooting 1.85:1 anyway, though.

Cheers,
Glad to have been of some help!

Dom.
 
And you did :)

Pcam has two listings of Red´s formats. There is 4k Full 16:9 and 4k 16:9. I need to check on what David Eubank has had in mind. Using a 14mm lens Full shows 82.14° fov and using just 16:9 shows 76.62°. As I undestand Full seems to be full 4096 pixels horizontal and regular seem to be cropped native sensor. But I don´t know for sure.


Dominic Jones said:
Horizontal angle does not enlarge between 16:9 and 2:1, unless you're cropping. Is your pcam taking into account the crop to 1.85:1? That would make sense, otherwise it's wrong. Both 16:9 and 2:1 are 4096 pixels wide.

Another possibility is that you're confusing diagonal angle of view with horizontal? That also changes, due to the aspect change.

There is - currently - no mode wider than 4096 available. Apparently a full sensor width (4520 pixels) 2.40:1 mode may become available at some point, but not yet.... That wouldn't help you if you're shooting 1.85:1 anyway, though.

Cheers,
Glad to have been of some help!

Dom.
Click to expand...
 
Hmmm... Interesting.

I would guess that "Full 16:9" is the whole sensor (including look-around space), which is 4520x2543, and "4k 16:9" is the actual 4K 16:9 recording mode of 4096x2304. However, by my calculations if that were the case and "Full 16:9" gave a horizontal AoV of 82.14°, then the "4K 16:9" mode should work out to 74.43°. Close, but not identical...

Not really sure why you'd want to know AoV for the full sensor either (as it's not recordable), but perhaps it's there in case that mode does get implemented at some point. However, from what I understand there's precious little chance (read: none!) of that ever happening for a 16:9 ratio - 2.40:1 full aperture is what I've heard talk of in the future, but even that is far from certain as far as I can tell...

Cheers,
Dom.
 
Dominic,

you got that wrong since full 16:9 on the pcam is the sam horizontal angle as native 2:1 (4096 px) So in my eyes full 16:9 means 4096 px and more vertical resolution than 2:1 (2048). Otherwise it should be a larger angle. I will check with David to make sure though. Thanks for your effort anyway. I keep that posted.

Markus


Dominic Jones said:
Hmmm... Interesting.

I would guess that "Full 16:9" is the whole sensor (including look-around space), which is 4520x2543, and "4k 16:9" is the actual 4K 16:9 recording mode of 4096x2304. However, by my calculations if that were the case and "Full 16:9" gave a horizontal AoV of 82.14°, then the "4K 16:9" mode should work out to 74.43°. Close, but not identical...

Not really sure why you'd want to know AoV for the full sensor either (as it's not recordable), but perhaps it's there in case that mode does get implemented at some point. However, from what I understand there's precious little chance (read: none!) of that ever happening for a 16:9 ratio - 2.40:1 full aperture is what I've heard talk of in the future, but even that is far from certain as far as I can tell...

Cheers,
Dom.
Click to expand...
 
hello Marcus,

Jeff Kilgroe said:
...
4K 16:9 is 4096 x 2304 | Cropped to 1.85:1 it would be 4096 x 2214

4K 2:1 is 4096 x 2048 | Cropped to 1.85:1 it would be 3788 x 2048
Click to expand...


make it simple - just calculate the area and i am sure - you will see the right approach:

16:9 cropped is 4096x2214 which is 9.068.544 pixels
2:1 cropped is 3788x2048 which is 7.757.824 pixels

comparing these two - it's obvious that you are throwing more than 1.3 million pixels away!!! if using 2:1 approach.

so in another words - you are throwing more or less 1/7 of your image if taking 2:1 path.

just think about it. :)

filip
 
Dominic Jones said:
For 1.85:1 you're far better off shooting 16:9 - it's a smaller crop than taking the sides down from 2:1, preserving as much resolution as possible. (16:9 is 1.78:1, so very close to 1.85:1). It also means, should you ever want (or be able to afford to) you can release a 4K version as you are preserving the full 4K width of the frame.

Another advantage is that you can provide a full-frame HD 16:9 master for bluray/broadcast/etc in the future without having to crop at all.

No real difference as far as FCP workflow goes, so that doesn't really figure into the equation...

Cheers,
Dom.
Click to expand...

Frame 16:9 is not same as 1:85.
 
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